When You Least Expect It
by Kellifer Monkey
Summary: Story begins post season two and disregards the pre-season three plot with the Salazars. A romance for Jack. "Love is but round the corner, if you know the way." COMPLETE (but somewhat abandoned.)
1. Distraction

Jack was still dazed from the blow he'd taken to the back of the head, as he left his apartment to go for an early morning run. He'd intended to do a couple of miles before work; since Kim had asked him to join her for dinner that night and he couldn't fit in the gym alongside the post-operation interviews. He was supposed to be talking to Marie Warner that afternoon, and given that he had briefly been involved with her sister over the holidays; things were even more testing and inappropriate than he thought they would be. Though the difficulty of explaining to his superiors how he'd been involved with a terrorist's sister and used said woman as a tool in his attempts to find the bomb, were the least of his worries now.  
  
A trickle of blood ran down his neck and his legs were clumsily trying to find purchase in the air, as he was dragged up a tarmac driveway and into the garage of what looked like a rather expensive manor house. Where the hell was he and who were these men that hauled him around like a soft toy?  
  
"Get him into the house… round the back so the old woman doesn't see when she gets in." said a thick Irish accent. Jack tried to tilt his neck and his eyes crinkled into a thin slither as he attempted to get his blurry vision into some kind of order.  
  
"What…what do you want with me? Who are you people?" Jack mumbled through a mouthful of blood and broken teeth. The man smiled and came close enough for Jack to smell the cheap whiskey on his breath.  
  
"Nice to see you are awake, Jack my old friend." said the slim dark haired man in a navy blue suit and pale blue pin-striped shirt, spattered with Jack's blood. "We have some talking to do. Seems you may have misplaced my nuclear bomb and that cost me a pretty penny, Jack." Two men pushed Jack Bauer into a hand-crafted metal dining chair and began tying his weak and weary limbs to the arms and legs with leather straps.  
  
"Lose his shirt before you strap his hands down; I like a little space to work." explained the man, who was now once again a blur on the other side of the brightly lit room. The lackeys did as they were told and then moved away from where Jack tried desperately to make sense of what was going on.  
  
"The bomb… it was flown out… I flew it to the desert…" Jack began trying to recall events that he'd spent ten and a half months attempting to forget. It had been hard to put all that behind him and start again with Kim. He'd been ready to throw it all away, using the excuse of saving his country. He was ready to leave his daughter alone when she was being hunted down by some sleazy wife beating son of a bitch and now…  
  
"I know what you did, Jack. It was very brave of you… I wonder how brave you can be now. You see, I needed that bomb to go off and the worst thing for you right now is that I still do." The man walked towards Jack and squatted down on his heels to meet his older counterpart's bleary eyes.  
  
"You can't change that now…" Jack began as he struggled to pull his hands free of the straps which bound him. The man laughed and patted Bauer's face with a cupped hand.  
  
"Don't struggle Jack… it won't help you. The chloroform has dulled your senses while I got you somewhere safe. You are right too. I can't go and make it so that bomb hasn't blown out square miles of the Mohave Desert, but I can make sure you play along while I get a second device into Los Angeles and make sure President Palmer gets my message this time."  
  
"What? I'd never…" Jack began, realising that the man was right and he had no hope of freeing his hands without help or a knife. He had neither as he sat tied in this splendid conservatory in just a pair of running shorts and blood soaked sneakers.  
  
"Oh you will help me, Agent Bauer." The man said sarcastically. "That is unless you want me to go and collect your daughter from college and tie her up beside you." Jack knew it was pointless but he struggled so much that the chair toppled sideways and broke three of the fingers on his left hand.  
  
"You leave my little girl alone, you piece of shit! You go near her and I'll…" The man chuckled as he pulled the chair up off the floor with ease.  
  
"You'll what, Bauer? What can you do, tied to a chair and bleeding all over yourself… and with a heart condition too? Poor Jack, you aren't the man I remember from our university days." Suddenly Jack knew who he was facing, knew the man he couldn't even properly see; it wasn't some terrorist from a file of unknowns or even someone he had hunted for, over several years and destructive missions. It was his old room mate and a man he thought was his friend.  
  
"Sean?"  
  
There was that familiar chuckle again.  
  
"That's right Jack, I'm your old buddy and you owe me a favour… it's time to pay up, Bauer. Now do I have to hurt you some more or are you going to get me on the phone to Palmer?  
  
Catherine sat in her study window and ran a wary glance across the street. Her head ached and her stomach lurched at how empty it felt. She needed to eat, but the story had to be finished and faxed to her employers by midday, and she didn't have the time to concern herself with such a trivial thing as food. It was while she distractedly looked out of the window of her five bedroom mansion house in Beverly Hills, trying to avoid her final summing up, that she saw that lowlife across the street up to his old tricks again.  
  
Sean O'Malley was a real nasty piece of work and part of the reason her late husband Joseph had been so paranoid about security. Joe had been paranoid about everything and after the bomb in the desert, he'd been so terrified of any harm coming to his wife and four year old son that he'd had a huge nuclear bunker built in the yard. Ironic that he'd been hit by a car the week the place was finished and died before he reached the private hospital of choice; when a state hospital was less than five minutes drive away.  
  
Catherine grieved for her husband despite having fallen out of love with him years before his death. She had stayed for the sake of their son and she remained the grieving widow for that same reason. Ben had loved his Dad and Catherine had no wish to spoil her little boy's memories. She had enough in her life without dating, and other men seemed like a distraction.  
  
It was a distraction that pulled her eyes from the page and caused her to stare across the road at just the right moment to have her morals and courage tested to the extreme. One moment she was writing an article about the local youth theatre's production of 'Romeo and Juliet', the next she was contemplating a life changing and possibly life risking decision.  
  
She watched as Sean and his goons dragged an athletic looking, blond guy out of the nasty black van and into his garage. He looked around suspiciously and Catherine knew that he was up to no good. She had seen many people leave that house looking the worst for wear, over the last seven years, and by far the most frequent to leave was the man's wife, Averill. That poor woman had been beaten so often, Catherine didn't know how she could walk or even breathe comfortably.  
  
Catherine had called the police many times to report O'Malley but it never came to anything and Averill always went back to him. The men who were taken inside, never looked like they wanted to be there and looked even less like they intended to come back when they were let out. Only this time it looked as though this guy would never get out.  
  
It took roughly twenty minutes for Catherine to make the decision to take a stand and somehow she felt strangely calm as she walked down the stairs and past the six monthly photographs of her little boy that decorated the flamboyant staircase. She should have been more careful, with no living family; her son would be left an orphan if anything happened to her. She should have been more sensible, more calculating, more like her husband.  
  
She knew what she needed to do and oddly even the prevailing love she had for her son wasn't enough to make her think twice. She didn't know the guy they were hauling across that stinking new tarmac drive; she'd never even seen him before; but she knew she couldn't leave him there to suffer, what she was sure Sean would do to him. No one left Sean O'Malley's house without some kind of life altering scars or memories. She was pretty sure that she would be no different on that count. She was also sure that the guilt she would live with would be a lot harder to carry if she didn't go.  
  
Walking through the kitchen she picked up a warm sweater from the clothes hamper and headed out across the street. There was a chill in the air, but the neighbourhood was eerily calm, she took a deep breath and walked up to the house opposite her own; absently wondering if anyone was buried under the tarmac that cracked under her heels.  
  
She should have been scared out of her mind, frozen with fear, but there wasn't a doubt in her mind as she watched Sean and his goons out in the yard with beers and smokes. Torture was on hold as she crept into the garage and along the kitchen counters which mirrored her own across the street. Her heart thumped in her chest and she knew now; clearer than she had ever known anything that this was the right thing to do. Life was about to change more than she could ever have guessed. 


	2. Extraction

As Catherine crept past the shiny obelisk of a refrigerator, she saw in its reflection, a refracted image of the man they had dragged inside only forty minutes before. She turned her head apprehensively and gazed at his sunken body. He was battered and broken, and her regret at his situation, washed over her like a sudden nausea. Blood seeped from deep and painful looking cuts; while burn marks, either from fire, water or acid; covered every other part of him. He couldn't possibly still be alive in that condition; she had to have been too late.  
  
Her heart had been pounding a hundred beats a minute, as she crept from room to room in her neighbour's house; but as it struck her that this poor man could be dead already, everything seemed to stop.  
  
She hadn't really understood why she felt the urgent need to do this. She had seen dozens of men go into Sean's house in as bad a way as this guy; and she'd never felt the desire to risk her life for any of them. Sitting listening to the muffled laughter of Sean and his goons outside and watching blood run down the man's chest; she had to ask herself why he was different.  
  
Then it hit her like a cartoon anvil, with the crazy squawks of Daffy Duck screaming at her fogged mind.  
  
'If he's worth risking your life for, why are you sitting their watching him dying?'  
  
With a new tidal wave of blood pumping on through her veins, she pushed herself along the floor and out into the huge glass and pine conservatory. The blond; although it was hardly noticeable under his blood-caked scalp, was inside a little so she wouldn't quite be seen from the garden. Sean was still guffawing at one of his mercenaries' jokes and it seemed that he had many more cruel anecdotes to tell before they returned to torture this guy further. Catherine summoned up every bit of courage she had and got up to grab a knife from the kitchen counter, before walking back across the brightly lit room to the man in the chair.  
  
"Can you hear me?" she whispered close to his ear, while she felt his neck for a pulse. It was feint but he was still alive. She lifted his right hand gently, by holding his fragile fingers in her palm; then slipped the knife under his wrist to saw it free of the leather strap. It came away quite easily and she moved down to cut his ankles free from the rear of the chair. His left leg slipped down from the taught position it had been trapped in and she heard a soft and barely audible moan from above her.  
  
His left hand looked badly damaged and at least two of the fingers were broken. She glanced up at his face again; a mess of blood and tears, it was difficult to even see what he looked like under all the damage. Catherine carefully lifted his hand to cut away the strap and he groaned in agony as his fingers crunched awkwardly together.  
  
"I'm going to help you… can you hear me?" Jack's eyes fluttered open and Catherine tried to quieten that annoying voice in her head that was finding this all very exciting and almost amorous. His eyes, although bloodshot, were blue and green like a Hawaiian sea; and his long lashes flickered open as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him. "Its okay, Sean is outside; I'll get you away. I… I just need to…"  
  
She walked on into the conservatory and pulled a throw from the cane furniture, to wrap around the poor man and maybe make it so they weren't spotted the moment they got outside. If they got outside.  
  
"What's your name?" she asked gently wrapping the deep red throw around him. He was conscious, but only barely; his lips trembled as he tried to speak and Catherine had to bend close to hear what he said.  
  
"J… Ja…Jack!" He stammered with dry, painfully split and cracked lips. Catherine smiled compassionately and nodded.  
  
"I'm Catherine. I live across the street. Can you walk, Jack?"  
  
He knew he had no choice but to try and stand. This was a miracle indeed, but one he'd have to work with. Catherine might have been his heroine; a guardian angel come to give him the peace he'd begged for, wished for, long before he was snatched by Sean O'Malley. But she wasn't a particularly strong woman, physically speaking. She had dark hair; almost black to his hazy sight and honest looking, hazel eyes with tiny flecks of green. Her face was round and her skin was what convinced his suffering mind that she really was saintly. It was like alabaster; with the only blemish upon it being a thin pinkish scar along her left jaw line. She was beautiful and her being there to rescue him was what made her the most perfect creature to ever walk the earth.  
  
He watched her face as she wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and tried vainly, not to press anywhere that might hurt him too much. She moved around to his right side and put his arm across her shoulder. He could smell the perfume she wore and the lavender of her shampoo mingled with the blood and burning scent that filled his nose. She was a breath of fresh air, something he had been sure he would never feel again, until she'd dragged him back to life.  
  
Catherine used all her strength to lift him awkwardly to his feet. She knew he was trying to support himself, but it was of little use as she walked him out towards the front door. He stumbled and slipped against her, covering her olive vest with his blood; it took all of her strength just to get him out of the room, let alone out the front door, down the steps and across the street to her own house.  
  
Her arm was giving way as they wearily covered the tarmac driveway and Catherine found herself saying muttered prayers, that Sean wouldn't catch them getting away. Jack winced with every slight movement and stepping down off the kerb made him groan in agony. It felt like hours had past when they finally made it into the family room of Catherine's opulently decorated home. She had thought ahead and managed to struggle with Jack's now rather limp body a few steps further, into the back of the house. Along with the benefits of washable upholstery, were the facts that the only window to that room looked out on the back of the house, which was completely out of view from the front door where she knew Sean would eventually come calling.  
  
Jack moaned as she lowered him down onto the couch and she was about to go for the medical chest that her husband had insisted on, when he grabbed her arm and beckoned her to him.  
  
"He'll kill you… you shouldn't have… brought me… into your… home."  
  
Catherine didn't know whether to be hurt or grateful for his words. She'd expected him to be appreciative; she'd begun to hope that he'd feel indebted to her and maybe stick around. He could have been some nasty hit man or a member of the mob, but frankly it hadn't even entered her head. He was a good man and he deserved her help. He maybe even deserved a lot more than her help too; but he was right. Sean O'Malley would be furious when he found his victim gone and he would definitely check out the neighbourhood, since he knew Jack wouldn't get far. When he found Jack with Catherine, he'd kill them both rather than go to jail for leaving a witness.  
  
It was surprising how easy the plan came to her and she marvelled at how well a usually timid young woman could be so constructive in these terrifying circumstances. She knelt beside Jack and asked him if there was anything he needed right away. He shook his head a little and watched her worriedly eyeing him. She knew what she had to do and looking into the murky sea of his eyes, she knew why she had to do it.  
  
Jack knew he'd lose consciousness again pretty soon if he didn't get some kind of adrenaline shot quickly. He couldn't just lie there knowing the potentially fatal outcomes that lay ahead of him. He had to get up, he had to fix himself up and get out of there before…  
  
His foggy mind was too sluggish to work out the best way to fix things. He was about to stop Catherine again, when she stood up and hurried out of the room, taking the throw that he'd been draped in with her. He tried to speak, he tried to stop her doing anything else 'courageous' before she got herself killed, but the words wouldn't come out. His mind and body were failing him in practically every way now. His stamina had given out completely and he knew that if Catherine hadn't come along when she did; he'd likely have gone along with Sean and finally turned to the other side; the way his superiors constantly worried that he would.  
  
He lay on her thick velvety couch, staring around the lines of his vision at the alien surroundings he found himself in. There were toys around the room, colouring books and pencils; and there on a notice board, in the alcove to what must have been the kitchen, were displayed a myriad of children's drawings. In them were depicted 'happy family' scenes with a cheerful looking middle aged man in what appeared to be a three piece suit and sunglasses. In his now dimming operational mind, Jack began to piece together a profile of the man in the picture. Of course this profile would have been obtained through the eyes of a naïve child, but it still held a lot of truth.  
  
He was older than Catherine appeared; although perhaps this was more in manner than in terms of age. He wore a suit, perhaps an official of some kind, or at least someone who commanded respect from others lower down the food chain. Though despite the authoritative air created by the dark glasses and smart attire, it seemed he wasn't the relaxed man that may appear to go with such superiority. His son saw him as stuffy and somewhat unassailable by reading the little characters' proximity to one another. The child quite obviously doted on his mother and who could blame him? Jack wondered, as he addressed the nature of the third character in the image.  
  
Beside the man was what Jack believed to be Catherine, though it wasn't entirely the same woman he'd just met with. Her long dark hair had been drawn straighter than he'd witnessed it being, and this was a drawback in his opinion. Perhaps it was merely fantasy, but the natural curl of her dark hair seemed to make her face even more angelic in his fragile state. Her eyes were brighter and greener than the deep russet brown shades that he'd noticed. The little boy obviously saw another side to his mother which coloured his view of her in art. The character wore a pink summer dress, which wasn't how Jack imagined her to normally dress, as he watched her lifting him in an olive coloured vest and khaki combat pants. She didn't seem the type to go for frills and powder, she didn't need them. She was beguiling, intimidating and beautiful, in all the ways that mattered to Jack; making her into an irresistible conundrum and a peaceful rest all at once. By far the most intriguing thing to Jack's mind, as he drifted away from the rest of the world, was her smile.  
  
Under the circumstances they found themselves in, it didn't seem out of the ordinary that Jack had never once seen his heroine smile. It didn't seem strange now that these people had different sides to themselves, beyond the views that their children held. He himself had never once seemed like a junkie to his daughter, but all through his literature degree, it would have been how his professors described him. There were sides that Jack hid from his daughter; this particular side of him had been hidden for a very long time, for instance.  
  
Jack let his mind drift to the drawings Kim had done in school at the age he presumed Catherine's son to be. She would draw images much the same; smiling little girl with ribbons in her hair and floral print dresses. Two rather inanely grinning parents each holding her hand as though they were about to swing her up into the air. Fact was that Teri never enjoyed the frolicking and day trips with their daughter as much as Jack did and it showed in the distance at which Teri was drawn to the other two. Kim's distancing from her mother started long before her rebellious teenage years.  
  
Once again Jack let his mind wander around the perimeter fence he'd built to keep his guilty memories at bay. He'd cheated, Teri had asked him to leave, and he knew it was his fault. He truly regretted his tryst with Nina, enough to be overwhelmingly repentant, to the point of agreeing with whatever Teri wanted. He had done his best to make amends for his adultery and it seemed to be working, at least between the two of them. Kim however, could never forgive her mother for throwing Jack out of their home and now she was dead, she would always harbour her own guilt for not seeing the importance of those little things, those special things; a smile for instance.  
  
Jack looked around the room at some of the family photos that sat in silver frames along the dresser and mantelpiece. They didn't look much different to the drawings, only the details were more precise. Catherine did have a beguiling smile, but there was a coolness in her eyes that he recognised from other places than the art her son had created.  
  
Her eyes held a distance that he knew very well. Her heart wasn't completely in it, her mind was wandering to other places, different times and spaces which would challenge and test her. As Jack finally lost consciousness his mind began to wonder.  
  
"Was today the day she waited her whole life for? Was this cool fall morning, the pinnacle of her existence so far? More to the point was it the same for him?"  
  
Beads of perspiration ran down Catherine's round cheeks. Her pulse was racing once more, and as the distance grew between her and the sound of Sean's mocking laughter, she became more fearful than courageous. If pushing the black van down onto Lloyd Crest Drive wasn't taxing enough on her nerves; the prospect of having to soon start the engine, and possibly draw Sean's attention made her sick with dread. Though start it she must, so sliding up into the driver's seat, she clicked on the engine with the spare keys she'd taken from the visor. The engine rumbled into action, thankfully quietly, and she pulled the door shut and drove down the road with only one fleeting glimpse at the still street behind her.  
  
After driving for almost five minutes she parked the van under the trees at Foxtons Supermarket car park and got out. She had worn the latex gloves from the medical box, so as not to leave any prints. It seemed a little excessive, but she didn't know what measures Sean was able to take in hunting down his victim. She took the throw from the passenger seat and wiped it on the steering wheel for authenticity, then left it lying on the seat with the door open.  
  
It was a good job; now if she could get home without being seen outside by Sean, she would have gotten away with it. Adrenaline was running through her body, swimming in her blood and igniting fires around her body to drive her on. She glanced around her as though she was seeing the world for the first time. Today was what her life had been waiting for. The feelings she had at that very moment, were ones she'd craved for years of stifled married life. Today was one that would change her life forever and she felt her mind drawn back to why.  
  
He was there in her home, the reason behind all this strange and unexpected behaviour was lying half dead on her couch. She had to help him, she had to get home and finish what she'd started. He needed her, someone finally needed her. 


	3. Acting

Catherine could see from about a hundred yards that Sean was very far from happy. She made her way back towards her home and within it, the man that her neighbour sought so desperately; perhaps as desperately as she had done, without even realising it. It had been seventeen minutes since she left Jack alone and her heart raced with each step she grew closer to him again.  
  
It felt a little crazy to be so eagerly anticipating what in actual fact probably wouldn't be a very nice situation at all. The man she wanted so much; for no rationally understandable reason, was lying half dead on her couch. This was one hell of a strange situation to find herself in. Once the adrenaline buzz began to ebb away, she began to wonder what the hell she was meant to do next.  
  
'Fix him.'  
  
It sounded childish in her ears, as though the embodiment of her conscience was a very assertive seven year old, chastising her with its omniscience. It might have seemed silly to hear her conscience as the voice of a child, though she quieted her doubt by reminding herself that sometimes the greatest wisdom can come from the mouth of babes. Then for the first time since this madness began Catherine thought of her son and what he was going to think of her irrational and impulsive behaviour.  
  
Ben was very mature and sensible, for a boy of only four years old. Many thought losing his father so tragically had brought about a sad loss of innocence; which in turn gave him a more reflective and adult nature. The truth was that Ben Colloni had probably come out of the womb as a miniature adult! He wasn't biologically mature, in the sense that he had to be induced at forty-two weeks, from his bloated and weary mother. Ben was in fact three weeks premature and his mother was fortunate enough in her pregnancy, to hardly ever look bloated and weary. Ben was mentally astute; and even when he spent almost a fortnight in an incubator, he seemed desperate to learn about the new world around him.  
  
Ben was never one to shy away from something new; even if his over-protective father discouraged almost every remotely dangerous activity, that Ben entertained thoughts of proceeding with. Joe Colloni loved his son and his wife more than anything in the world, but the ways he chose to show this love, always seemed a little excessive. A fact that did not go unnoticed by the inquisitive four year old.  
  
Joe was a businessman. What he did for a living, Catherine was yet to find out. He provided lavishly for his family and gave generously of his world weary heart; which was enough for Ben's happiness and adequate for Catherine's comfort. He was a good man, a kind man, but he was never really the man that Catherine saw herself with. He was the man she settled for, when her heart was lonely; the man she stayed with when she fell pregnant with his son. He was a good father, but he wasn't her sweetheart. Joe was everything that a woman would like in a husband… any woman but Catherine.  
  
What Catherine wanted from a husband went deeper than a provider and a devoted, compassionate lover. She wanted a friend, a confidante when things were hardest; someone she could be interested in and desire to understand the intricacies of. As far as she was aware, the only intricacies that Joe had were the ones he used to padlock the garage and burglar-proof the conservatory. Things were never hard with Joe. Everything she needed or wanted would be given to her, everything that was, but for the one thing she wanted more than anything else… passion.  
  
She wanted things to be crazy sometimes, she wanted to be tested and driven to extremes. To feel life as it really was; gritty, messy and troubled. She wanted to have to suffer for her happiness. After all, as Joe always said; in business, the best rewards are those that you worked hardest to achieve. As Sean O'Malley approached her from across the street, she was very harshly reminded of the hard work that now lay ahead of her. When Sean was no more than a few feet away, her last considered thought was about whether or not she could have her just rewards.  
  
"Hi Mrs Colloni, how are you this fine day?" His smug grin hid what she knew he wanted to do to her; what he wanted to do to almost every woman on their drive. Sean O'Malley was as much of an interloper in Beverly Hills as she thought she was. How she ever ended up living in such luxury was beyond her reckoning. She and Sean had come from modest backgrounds and education; but here they both stood, in one of the most sought after zip codes in Los Angeles shooting the breeze as if it was the most normal thing in the world for them and had always been on the cards.  
  
It was time for Catherine's poker face to be tested now and she ran the back of a somewhat pale hand across her sweaty brow, before shaking it loosely to her side as though she were exhausted. She hid her proud smile as she remembered the acting classes she'd took over the summer she was pregnant. Joe had told her to quit when she started showing, but it was an invaluable lesson to have learnt now that she had to act for the life of another.  
  
"I would have been fine, only I had to post in an article for tomorrow and stupidly thought it better to walk on such a nice day." Sean gave her a satisfied grin and nodded, slowly as though his head might topple off if he shook it too hard.  
  
"I know what you mean, Mrs Colloni. Warm beer in the back yard seems to have gone to my head…" He paused and watched her looking away towards his house and then her own. She caught his glance and bit her lip in vexation. It was stupid of her to look so obviously guilty; she cursed herself silently for not being more considered in her body language and behaviour. Even three weeks of acting lessons should have taught her to hide her guilt better than that.  
  
Fortunately for her, the alcohol and torturous merriment had dulled Sean's senses and all he was thinking with, was his little man. Since Joe died, over a year ago, Sean had been only too happy to mow the lawn and tend the car for her. Only Catherine didn't trust Sean anywhere near her brake cables and declined his offer graciously. He had never bargained his way into her house before and this was not going to be the day to start.  
  
"Yes I think I'll get indoors and take a shower before I have to go and collect my son from kindergarten. Don't get too much sun now." She made to walk away and felt Sean take her elbow in his firm grip. Feeling a chill sweep down her spine she turned around looking a little aggrieved.  
  
"I'm sorry… I just…" He let go of her arm and gazed down at his shoes rather innocently. "I seem to have misplaced a friend of mine; we were having a bit of a laugh together. You know, few beers, joking around and wrestling. I think he may have left the party early. I don't suppose you noticed him on your travels?"  
  
Catherine shook her head slowly as if she were considering his question. All she was really considering was how she could get away with beating the shit out of this peace of living excrement for making light of what he had just done to Jack.  
  
"I don't remember seeing any men, not on the way to the post office or back along the footpath. It's all young mothers with strollers and kids cutting school at this time of the afternoon." Sean smirked and nodded with slight amusement at Catherine's candour.  
  
"Well to be honest, Mrs Colloni, he is a bit of a trouble maker; if you do see him, make sure to let me know; he's not a guy to mess with, if you know what I mean." Catherine huffed a little and couldn't hide her dislike for what Sean did for a 'living'. She glanced around her and shrugged.  
  
"Well if you think he is dangerous or something, shouldn't I call the police department?" It wasn't a hard question to deliver; whether she believed Sean or not, his kind of handling things was not what she'd like to see happen to anyone, least of all someone as seemingly gentle as Jack.  
  
"I wouldn't bother, they couldn't do a thing. He's above the law you see Mrs Colloni, he's a trained assassin and good buddies with President Palmer too. You might have heard of him actually. I'm sure your Joe would have known who he was…"  
  
Up to this point Catherine had managed to hide her real feelings and bury the truth deep enough for Sean not to notice that she was telling him outright lies with an almost flirtatious look on her face. Now that she was being offered what sounded like real information about the man she had lying half naked on her couch, she couldn't hide the yearning in her voice.  
  
"Why would Joe know someone like that?" She wanted it to sound surprised or perhaps a little offended; it came out as desperation and longing. Something Sean had a history of ignoring in his wife' Averill's case and would take for granted in his neighbour too.  
  
"Well Joe was always very security conscious wasn't he?" Sean didn't wait for an answer and smiled around the cigar now placed over his fat lower lip. "This guy I'm talking about. He was the guy who flew the nuke out to the desert last year, surely Joe mentioned that… Jack Bauer?"  
  
Catherine knew he looked familiar, but it hadn't been the reason for all this. She wasn't trying to save one of America's most heroic men for any kind of public gratitude. As she was offered a sensible reason for her actions, she found clarity in knowing that they were beside the point. She hadn't done this to show off, or to test her limits the way she had longed to when Joe was alive. She was doing this because something inside her was telling her to. It wasn't desire for recognition that spurred her into action one hot summer day. It was simply desire for him… for Jack.  
  
"Well I'll keep an eye out, but wouldn't he have just gone home if he wasn't having fun anymore? I don't see why he'd hang around the neighbourhood, I'd have got a cab and…" Her idea awoke a new line of questioning in Sean's mind and he decided to follow up her suggestion and go and look for his missing van.  
  
"Well I'll let you get inside and clean up, let me know if you do see anything odd won't you?" Catherine nodded gravely and took her leave of her neighbour to get inside and on with the job.  
  
"You have a good day, Mrs Colloni… say 'hi' to little Ben for me. He's a good boy that one. I hope I'll have a son as handsome and intelligent as him, one day myself." Catherine smiled and closed her little iron gate; for once glad that Joe had been so paranoid about creeps like Sean getting onto their property.  
  
"I hope you get over your sun stroke and this little problem of yours, now if you'll excuse me, things to do and people to see and all that." 


	4. Becoming

For a moment Catherine was afraid she had taken too long. Jack's eyes were closed comfortably, but it seemed as though whatever was going on in his mind were of the utmost importance; since when she drew closer, Catherine noticed that his eyes were fluttering under their lids, like hyperactive butterflies. She stepped cautiously towards him and knelt at his side.  
  
"Jack, can you hear me? It's safe now, no one will come here. I got rid of the…."  
  
His eyes fluttered open and he blinked a few times, as the daylight streaming in the windows burnt his retina to the size of a pin prick.  
  
"Its okay, Jack; you're safe now." Catherine whispered close to his ear. He turned his head and winced as some of the dried blood that was caked on his neck cracked and stung his burnt skin beneath. "I'll get the medical kit and try and clean you up, okay?"  
  
Jack watched as this stranger, until a few hours ago, looked on him with sensitivity and the compassion of a lifelong lover. He'd come home to Teri with battle damage and she'd kiss his cheek and send him to get cleaned up. Okay it was never the kind of suffering he'd faced today, but this was something he had never experienced before. He blinked his eyes twice and tried to move to speak.  
  
"Its okay, you don't have to talk. Would you like some water?" He blinked again and she guessed that this was a reply in the positive. Quickly Catherine went into the kitchen, which ran alongside the large family room and the drawings on the alcove wall swayed with her motion. It was almost magical the way that her surroundings seemed to embody her spirit. He did feel safe now, despite the reason for his demise being only a few hundred yards away. She comforted and cared for him and for the first time in many years he really did feel safe.  
  
She gathered together a large green chest of supplies and a bowl of warm water, which held within it, a soft blue towelling flannel. Sitting cautiously beside him, Catherine dripped a little of the water onto his lips. His mouth opened by reflex alone, as he was drifting in and out of consciousness intermittently. She let him drink the drips of clean water until he took no more and then began to wipe at the sore, bloody skin of his face.  
  
Her hands worked lightly over his skin, taking a thin layer at a time, so as not to cause him any further discomfort. As Catherine uncovered his world worn skin, she couldn't help but be wooed by his gentle and vulnerable looking features. His eyes were big and although he'd barely opened them to respond, she knew that they would not be a disappointment to look upon. It became so that the expectation of seeing them gaze upon her, was almost intolerably alluring. Moving the blanket from his chest she started to clean away the blood and puss from his skin. The water was going cool and pink with his blood and Catherine began to realise the extent of the damage and how difficult it might be to treat these wounds without medical assistance.  
  
"Jack. Can you hear me? I need to get you to the bathroom; there is too much blood…" He struggled to move, but made no effort to shirk her aid, or overrule her advice. Together they stumbled to a ground floor bathroom and she lowered Jack back onto a stool in the bright, modern bathroom's large, tiled shower cubicle. She bent to remove his sneakers, and loosened each lace slowly and with great care.  
  
Jack let his head loll forward on his shoulders and watched Catherine remove his ruined shoes as though they were delicate glass slippers. Her hands were quite large for a woman, but her fingers were dainty and perfect; though not in a fashion model sense. They weren't elegantly manicured and polished; they weren't the hands of the woman who might have been thought to live in a house like that. Catherine didn't fit with her outward appearance at all and something in that made Jack find her all the more alluring.  
  
"I'll need to… should I…" She was blushing and Jack pulled his thoughts back from her hands to what she was actually saying. 'Why did she look so… oh!' Jack thought, and then his face fell to where her hands hovered over the waistband of his shorts. Even though Catherine was clearly embarrassed, Jack mistook her innocence as more concern for his well-being.  
  
"You can cut them…" he said laboriously and with a husky tone to his voice. "I don't think I'll wear them again!" Catherine smiled as his humour set her nerves at rest. She smiled and was rewarded as Jack opened his eyes fully to look upon her generously.  
  
Who was to know that in that somewhat brief moment, they had both received the first of their ached for rewards? He'd waited to see her smile, for what felt like years of pain and agony. Not just from that morning but for his whole life. For in that moment when their eyes met, Jack found something he felt he'd searched his whole lifetime for.  
  
This emotion wasn't far removed from what Catherine was feeling either. As she'd tended him for over an hour, she had been aching to see those imagined, beautiful, blue eyes rest upon hers fondly. It was like a drug that she craved, and as soon as it happened, she knew it was now to take the place of the water she couldn't live without.  
  
She took the scissors and cut away the blood soaked cloth from his hips as though his running shorts had been the kind strippers wear, which tear away at the side. 'That would have to be one fucked up hen party, to have a stripper looking like Jack! Mind you they wouldn't have been disappointed.'  
  
She let the balmy shower spray wash over his body and took off her sweater to be able to clean up his battered body without completely ruining her own clothes. He watched her hands work over every inch of his aching flesh and a wave of nausea hit him with the nervous anticipation of feeling her warm flesh against his own. The cloth wiped gently at the wounds that decorated his tanned skin and he winced a little, as he felt blood rush through his veins and alert every frayed nerve in his body to its recent demise.  
  
"I'm sorry." Catherine said looking up at him with wide innocent eyes. "I didn't mean to hurt you… I'll try to be more careful." She saw the look in his eye, but couldn't allow herself to take it for what she knew it was. Her feelings were silly, why would this man ever see anything in her? He was a hero; someone that other's wanted to be or wanted to be with. Why on earth, out of all the people in the world, would he choose her?  
  
"Its okay, Catherine… You have already done so much for me… my guardian angel!" he smiled timidly.  
  
Suddenly it dawned on her that he hadn't been the one doing the choosing at all. It was such an unfamiliar feeling for her to be the one making the first move that it hadn't even seemed like an option before. What's more this wasn't hero worship and being out for what she could get; she hadn't even known who he was when she risked her life to save him. He could have been anyone.  
  
Except he wasn't… he could never just be a nobody. Jack Bauer was born to be something greater than the rest of those mere mortals plodding through their lives with sour faces. Jack was something special and as Catherine finished by delicately cleaning his broken fingers, she began to realise what an extraordinary feeling it was, just to be next to such a man. 


	5. Opportunity

It took Catherine almost two hours to dress the more serious wounds on Jack's muscularly, athletic body. She used all the sticking plasters and bandages in the box, mostly on his torso where he'd been deliberately cut to almost fatal depths. She gently rubbed ointment onto the burns and put splints on his broken fingers as best she could.  
  
After cleaning up the remnants of the medical chest, she managed to find Jack some of Joe's old clothes from the attic; things she'd kept for Ben to remember his father by that now had a more practical use. There was an old flannel shirt that Joe used to wear every Sunday without fail. It was his chilling out attire and came with a pair of faded jeans and some comfortable, but battered walking boots. Thankfully Jack was a similar build and despite being a little shorter than Joe, the clothes fit well enough and the shoes could have been made for him. The chilled out look didn't suit Jack any better than it had done with Joe. Neither man was really the type to just sit still and Catherine was beginning to dread the moment that Jack would up and leave as Joe always had done.  
  
Jack had been asleep for much of the time it had taken to fix him up and Catherine watched his face as he slowly began to relax. 'How had she got here?' That was a question that continued to nag at her mind. However, its partner in crime seemed to be more annoying and persistent. 'What possessed her; an ordinary, young, relatively clueless woman, to take on such a crazy challenge?'  
  
"Catherine…" Jack whispered as she lifted his shoulders to slip the shirt around him. "You are real, right? This isn't my imagination."  
  
Again she smiled and eased him down onto his back, as he tried to search her eyes for an answer, for some security, some assertion that he was safe. She drew the shirt gently over his chest and looked up into his eyes, while fastening up all but the top two buttons.  
  
"I'm real… although I don't know if I'm sane right now. I just keep asking myself why I did all this. I'm normally… well, pretty timid, I guess. I didn't know I had it in me to even stand up to Sean, let alone all this…"  
  
She was rambling, trying to cover up the nervous edge in her voice. Fumbling with the buttons of his shirt and enjoying the physical activity that kept her from trembling uncontrollably. She tried to stop the shyness she felt, being noticed by the man who she was equally scared and excited by. When the buttons were done, the words dried up and all she could do was stare into his big blue green eyes for help.  
  
"You are very brave." He told her, genuinely in awe of the way she had reacted to the situation and deeply touched by the compassion she had shown him. He felt like a fool; trying to find small talk with someone who had just put her life in danger to protect him, a perfect stranger. He felt even more foolish once he tried to make sense of why he was sounding like such a jerk. "You're husband is going to finish me off if he comes…"  
  
"My husband? I don't have a… he died just over a year ago." She stammered and seemingly forgot everything she had ever known; anything that came before this insane morning. Though it seemed silly to be so confused; after all, the place was covered in photographs, drawings and toys, of course Jack would wonder about her family background.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
He spoke softly and she could see the pain on his face as he tried to make up for his faux pas. There was a lot more in his eyes, as they met hers once more, that couldn't be explained by the embarrassment of the mistake alone.  
  
"He was in a road accident… he died on the way to the hospital. It was a long time ago now."  
  
It was a long time ago; and in truth, she didn't really miss him for her own sake anymore. Not for the first time since all this madness began, she wondered how Ben would feel. She had been foolish to put Jack in those clothes; Ben would be disturbed by some man in his father's clothes, some man who had seen more of her affection in one morning than Joe had been party to in several years after their son's birth. It was too late to change that now though.  
  
"I should arrange a pick-up and leave before I get you into more trouble." Jack said with a note of sadness in his tone, which in her panic, Catherine completely missed.  
  
One moment she was scared of her son finding her alone with some strange man, the next she was terrified of that same guy leaving her with the emptiness that she now knew her life to be without him.  
  
"You can't go yet, Sean is still outside… it isn't safe." She felt her heart sink as she saw the regret in Jack's eyes. He was going to leave her and she'd never see him again, especially if Sean saw him first. "I'll take care of you; I'll make sure you are safe… here with me."  
  
Jack looked at her with sorrow in his eyes, emanating from a part of him that he thought had long forgotten how to love. How he wished things could be different for once.  
  
"I have to go, Catherine. I don't want to leave… it's my job. Sean did this to me for a reason and…" He paused for a moment, giving some consideration to what he had to say. "Sean is going to do something terrible, he is a threat to the country, and to the President… you need to leave too. You and your little boy, you have to get out of the state, out of the country if you can."  
  
"What about you? If it is so dangerous then you should leave too. I didn't drag you out of there just to go and…"  
  
"It's my job, Catherine. I work for the President and Sean plans to do something terrible today; he wanted my help, but…"  
  
Catherine knew then what was going to happen and she didn't want Jack to risk his life the way he had done last time. Not if there was a way to stop it.  
  
"You can stay here with me and Ben." She interrupted rather desperately. "I like you, Jack. Please don't go and get into something with that bastard… he might not stop at hurting you next time." Jack cradled her face in his palm and gazed into her warm brown eyes.  
  
"Cathy, I have to go and deal with this and you need to go somewhere safe. He told you who I am didn't he?"  
  
The way he spoke, it seemed that he saw himself as almost as bad a person as Sean. They worked the same circles, saw the same atrocities, and were party to the same cruelties; the sort of things that Catherine would never be able to understand, unless she lived in his world. It wasn't somewhere that Jack ever wanted to invite people back to.  
  
"I shouldn't tell you this, but I don't care anymore. I hate my job, Cathy. I hate what it does to me and my family. I hate losing everyone I am close to, because some piece of shit decides I'm a good target. I want to go somewhere and not have to think about it again. I don't want to live in that world anymore. If I could stop him and make things right… I do want to stay. I like you too. I don't want to leave you."  
  
"Jack, what is happening to us?" Catherine asked, timidly drawing her hand up to hold his against her face.  
  
"Sean may have another bomb. You have to leave the state… I'll help you and Ben and I'll come back to you when it's all over."  
  
"No!" She said assertively, startling him a little by the authority in her voice. "We don't need to go anywhere; you don't need to fight this time, Jack. Let someone else do it. Look at you, you can't go out and take Sean on when it hurts you to sit up."  
  
"So what else can I do? If I don't try to stop Sean and his men, he could nuke L.A. and kill millions of innocent people. I can't run or hide from this stuff." Jack said with misdirected anger.  
  
"You could hide." Catherine retorted, equally aggressively. "My husband, he was petrified of the terrorist threats and had a bunker built out in our yard. It could keep us all for thirty years or more. Please don't leave, Jack. I don't want you to die." A tear rolled down her face and over the tips of his bruised fingers.  
  
Faced with the opportunity to say no to this day, Jack was thrown into a turmoil he'd never experienced before. All the times he'd been on incomprehensibly dangerous missions, he'd comforted himself, knowing he had no choice but to fight back. There was no opportunity for him to lie back and let someone else deal with the mess. This time it was different though; this time he had the chance to walk away and more importantly than that, a chance to be with someone very special.  
  
Silence enveloped them, and all they could do was to search one another's faces for the right response. Could he report Sean to CTU and walk away? Would he be able to turn away from his duty, the way he'd always wished he could? And the question that was most agonising of all, why had Catherine done all this for him? Could he trust that she wasn't just an intricate part of Sean's plan? Could she really be falling for him the way his senses were telling him she was; the way he had fallen for her? 


	6. Chosen

"Tony, I need a pick up at…" Jack paused and looked over at Catherine, biting her nails on the couch distractedly and asked, "Where is a safe pick up point in the area?"  
  
Catherine looked up with a worried expression; she really didn't want him to leave and she didn't relish the opportunity of deciding his fate by choosing a pick up point for his employers either. She tried quickly to think of a safe place, somewhere Sean wouldn't go. Somewhere that wouldn't put him in any further danger.  
  
"There is a mall about twenty minutes drive from here, they could pick you up out the back there, and it's too nice for the likes of Sean. I doubt he's ever been near any place other than the minute mart!"  
  
Jack smiled and winced a little as a gash in his face split open again. He related these details to Tony and briefly explained what Sean O'Malley had planned to do. Then there came the words that Catherine had longed to hear.  
  
"I'm not going to be working the case, Tony. I've been through a lot this morning and I'm grateful to be alive at all. I'll de-brief and fill you in on the background and stuff, but I have to take care of Kim and her needs this time. I can't put those I love second to my work any longer. It just isn't fair. If Ryan wants me out, then so be it. There's more to life Tony, surely you understand that?"  
  
Tony Almeida remained silent a moment; quite honestly he was having a little trouble taking in what his superior had to say. Jack wasn't the guy who sat on the sidelines. He wasn't someone who took the comfort of civilian life over the excitement and energy of making a better world for those he loved. Though perhaps the time had come to stop trying to make things better and be happy with what he had. What he had waiting for him when all the world was fixed for a while, seemed so much more important now that he had almost had it snatched away without warning.  
  
"I'm sure Kim has learnt to handle your job by now, Jack." Tony said with an ambiguous tone. He too was beginning to see that CTU wasn't a job for life; or if it was, it was a relatively short life.  
  
"Kim isn't the issue here, Tony. There is someone I care a great deal about, who showed me the value of stability today. I need to have more to my life than a successful career; what comfort will it be to me when I come to die, if I gave up on all those that I loved for a job."  
  
"This is more than a job, Jack. You know that… after what happened to Teri, how can you rationalise this as just quitting a job. Don't you want to go after Nina for what she did anymore? Don't you want to right wrongs and ensure the safety and freedom of those you care about?"  
  
Tony knew he was playing devil's advocate here. He knew that he was trying to convince himself as much as he was Jack. He wanted to drop back to a nice safe office job and marry Michelle, maybe raise a few kids, get a dog and a picket fence. Jack wasn't the only one with another life in the wings, permanently laying in wait for something to make the protagonist catch its eye. Only Jack had seen it for what it was that morning and he no longer wanted centre stage.  
  
"I just want to feel loved, Tony. Losing Teri, knowing it was my fault…" He paused knowing that his friend and colleague would try to dispute his assertion. "It was my fault, Tony, whatever anyone tells me. I had the choice to walk away then and leave it to someone else. I could have got the hell away from Nina and…" But he'd lost the flow.  
  
Somehow it didn't feel so true anymore. He'd never lose the love he'd felt for his wife and he'd never take for granted the similarities their daughter showed as she grew into a responsible young woman, but there was something he needed too now. That something was worrying herself sick on the couch behind him and he wasn't going to let her suffer a moment longer.  
  
"I have a similar choice now, Tony. I can keep them all safe this time. I lost a wife and unborn child because I wasn't watching over them properly. My duty is to my family from now on; my country has had my attention for far too long already. I'm sorry Tony; this will be my last day as Director of CTU."  
  
A/N: This wasn't quite the ending I had in mind and is really just to bring things to some sort of conclusion. I am very busy with other projects and may return to this for an alternate longer ending at some point, but right now I'm afraid it must be abandoned. Thanks for all your support and encouragement over the last year or so, it has been of immeasurable benefit to me and I hope you found as much enjoyment in these stories as I did. Until the next time… thanks and all the best. 


End file.
